Rising damp & salt attack · South East QLD
That white stuff on your bricks isn't going away on its own.
another coat of paint definitely won't do it
Salt bloom, chalky brick, mortar turning to sand, a damp line creeping up the wall. We work out what is actually causing it — and nine times out of ten it is something cheaper than a damp course.
What are you looking at?
Start with what you can see. Every one of these gets blamed on rising damp, and only some of them are.
- White salt on the bricksA powdery bloom, worse after rainHave a look
- Bricks going chalkyMortar turning to sand, faces flaking offHave a look
- A tide mark on the wallA level damp line, low downHave a look
- Paint bubbling, render blowingBlistering near the floor or the groundHave a look
- A damp concrete slabWet patches under vinyl, cupping timberHave a look
- Damp under the houseMusty subfloor, damp smell insideHave a look
The bit nobody else will tell you
Rising damp is real. It's just not what you've got, most of the time.
Condensation, a blocked downpipe, a garden bed built up over the damp course, a sprinkler pointed at the wall, an air-conditioner draining into the footing, moisture through a slab. All of these look like rising damp. None of them are fixed by a damp course.
The awkward part is that the person diagnosing it is usually the person selling the cure, and they turn up holding a two-pin moisture meter that reads absurdly high on any wall with salt in it — wet or bone dry.
Why we argue against our own productWhat we actually do
Two things. That is the whole list.
- Chemical damp course
- External brickwork — A new damp-proof course injected into the mortar bed, to stop groundwater climbing the wall.
- Hydropoxy slab treatment
- Internal concrete slabs — Negative-side epoxy moisture barrier applied to the top of the slab — grind back, prepare the surface, then apply the membrane before the new floor goes down.
Render replacement, saw-cut damp courses, drainage, landscaping and subfloor ventilation are all sometimes the right answer. None of them are ours, and we will say so.
The line-up
Nine questions. Then we name the suspect.
You get a named cause, what is actually happening in plain English, the cheapest thing to try first, roughly what it costs, and a straight yes or no on whether you need us. No email address, no phone number, no sales call.
Of the 12 causes it can identify, 9 of them aren't our work at all.
Run the line-up- QBCC licence
- 15438819Check it on the public register
- No free inspection
- Because a free inspection by the person selling the cure is not an inspection, it is a sales call
- Tested, not guessed
- Drilled samples and salt analysis before anyone quotes, not a pin meter waved at a skirting board
- Part of
- S&S Remedial, waterproofing and concrete repair specialists in South East Queensland
Send us three photos.
The whole wall from a distance, a close-up of the damp and any salt, and the ground outside at the base of that wall. That is usually enough for us to tell you what you are dealing with — including when the answer is a shovel and a Saturday.